Insights for the Month of Taurus

April 19:Sun enters Taurus: 11:13 PM EDTTaurus is generally considered to be the most stable and resolute sign of the zodiac, as predictable as the ground we stand upon. It’s the fixed earth sign: Fixed = power, earth = matter. We can play with those key words; power matters, or maybe what matters most. Things are not terribly stable at the moment, not in the world as we experience it nor in the astrological picture of that world. Our world.

As the Sun enters Taurus today it will do so in an out-of-sign conjunction with Uranus, the planet of unexpected change and disruption. Uranus will enter Taurus on May 15th, while the Sun is still in that sign. It hasn’t been there since May 16, 1942: Exactly 76 years.

Specific to this ‘ingress’ or entry to a new sign, is that the Sun today and Uranus from May 15th, will engage the energies of Neptune (in a semi-square). Neptune most definitely represents the ‘tricky fish’ aspect of reality: Things that we see for a moment which slip back into the deep, leaving some of us dazed and confused and others mystified and longing to drink from the waters.

It is never my intention to predict the future. I don’t believe we can or even should get specific about things that might happen. Probability is as real for astrologers as it is for everyone else. What happens, happens. Astrology’s great contribution is to provide insights regarding how we might navigate events. At this time it is hard to find a person who is not anxious about the over abundance of chaos in the wider world. Many seem to be waiting, wondering and often waking in the middle of the night with anxiety as if they are expecting the other shoe to drop, the shoe that will hit their personal reality.

What I like to do with the images of astrology is to remind myself that ‘everything to be imagined is an image of truth”. The fact that this pithy truth comes from a work entitled ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’ tells us that what we imagine can go either way. And so I practice: calming my mind and connecting as best I can with the natural world. One thing about Taurus, it lives here on Earth. Gaea is its home and native land. In support of this seemingly great change that is upon us is Saturn in Capricorn (along with Vesta). Capricorn is an earth sign and supports Taurus in making the right effort. All efforts are needed, outcomes are not always obvious.

April 22Pluto stationery retrogradeWe are all familiar with the underworld. This knowledge predates movies. Most likely it existed in the human mind even before books. Maybe it was one of the earliest stories, the story of where you go when you dig down below? What is the color and scent of that place? Who lives there? Most importantly is it a place of punishment and suffering or just a place? A place of denial? Repression? Shadow? How does it live in your life? It’s a powerful land and it holds the foundations of the life we live above ground. What are you digging for? Whatever it is, it is also connected to goals and ambitions between now and 27th. Be respectful of what you find there.

April 24Mars sextile Jupiter
Venus enters GeminiIn the midst of everything happening and some things not happening there is a real opportunity to simply do what must, can and should be done. It’s a ‘fetch water, carry wood’ moment.Venus embarks on her butterfly period. Flitting from flower to flower, fertilizing the world with ideas, contradictions and connections that didn’t seem possible at all. We all ‘’contain multitudes’. Our job as mere mortals under Venus is to ‘love the earth’ and notice and delight in how life is a constant expression of beauty.

April 25Mercury square SaturnToday is the last page in the book of the most recent Mercury Retrograde period (March 22nd – April 15th). Mercury has squared Saturn three times. (March 11th, April 5th and today). Anyone who has ever read a fairy tale or a book on magic knows that things that happen thrice are significant. The first time is the setup. The second time teaches a lesson. The third time shows you how you’ve grown. It’s a tough and frustrating aspect but someone deserves to be congratulated.

April 26Mars conjunct PlutoWhat matters most: The seven generations or the moment of our lives? Which ambition should we, will we serve? We could think of it this way:

We live both/and, not either/or. These human brains are so fascinating, so complicated. They make things like time and ambition real.

April 29Full Moon: 9 degrees of Taurus: 8:58 PM EDT
Sun trine SaturnIf you could even begin to answer the ‘what matters most’ question now is an excellent time to invest in your answers. May the children of today’s children, whose hearts and minds will be a lot like our own, thank us for it.We pay for our cake. We eat it. It is gone. Desire and hunger may give rise to greed but they are often our teachers.

There are no aspects between planets from today until May 6th. This does not mean nothing is happening! The Moon, carries us across these moments, however long they last. It is the thread of emotion, the moods that block or reveal us to ourselves and one another. It will tend to emanate from this full moon.

May 6Sun sextile NeptuneIf you’re of a mystical bent, today offers many doors through which to find Oneness. These openings come, they go. For the rest of us, there might be many small, sweet, simple pleasures. Ride them like a wave. There is no point and no profit in holding on to any of them.

May 7Mercury square Pluto
Venus square Neptune

Awakened as you may be to some “splendor in the grass” today activates an abrupt shift which may give us the sense of suddenly seeing life as though inside a hall of mirrors, some kind of crazy proof that life sucks and then it’s over, before you ever actually learned anything. But truly, life, like love, is as constant as the Sun, our thoughts like clouds softening the glare or obscuring the pure light.

May 8

Sun opposite Jupiter

There are situations and people, not to be trusted: Thin ice, politicians, hot water heater salesmen, bitcoin. Use your powers of discrimination. There are other people and situations that we must trust to build intimate connections. Betrayal is always a possibility but you are and have always been the most important person to earn and hold your trust.

May 11Sun trine PlutoWe do indeed, have the power: Power over, power within, empowerment. Effort plus power can continue to replay the past 10,000 years of dominance or move toward a future, chaotic as that journey seems, of sustainability. The power of desire is not the problem at the moment so much as the object of desire. The things we insist on consuming. What we really want is often simpler than what we think we want. Do not be tricked by hope or despair. It’s the middle path between them, the path of showing up right where we are that will carry us through. In Pluto’s realm even the simplest most obvious things are obscured.

May 12Mercury square MarsQuestion your ambitions. Not just the ends but the means. It’s an excellent habit to cultivate.

May 13Mercury conjunct Uranus
Mercury enters TaurusTrust your hunches, hackles and intuitions. The seeds of summer are sprouting. Contemplate the incontrovertible truth that everything we touch, changes and how change touches everything. This then is more powerful than the men who believe they decide the fate of the world.

Fate is a cruel
and proficient potter,
my friend. Forcibly
spinning the wheel
of anxiety, he lifts misfortune
like a cutting tool. Now
having kneaded my heart
like a lump of clay,
he lays it on his
wheel and gives a spin.
What he intends to produce
I cannot tell.

May 15New Moon: 24 degrees of Taurus: 7:48 AM EDT
Uranus enters TaurusTo do the best we can, given circumstance is wise as well as possible. To ward off malevolence, we might pray. How to pray is as individual as hearts that take up the task of prayer. We are entering a new phase. Look for any and all wake-up calls regarding the use and misuse of Gaea’s bounty. There could be a groundswell. This story is to be continued…

May 16Mars enters Aquarius
Mars square UranusIt could feel like whiplash, the speed at which things change, the dazzling, terrifying shift to a ‘new normal’. This unsettling aspect will happen twice more (August 1st, September 18th). If you are personally upended today be assured that your greatest asset is the ability to stay present. It’s not about where you’re going so much as where you are.

May 18Mercury trine SaturnStability, process, time, these are the things that allow us to build new futures atop of old ones. If the foundation is rotten then it must be cleared away. Don’t resist, engage.

May 19Venus enters Cancer
Venus sextile UranusThe time to coddle the precious inner children is over. It’s the real children, the hungry and cold, the tired and lost that we must attend to. But, of course, this is not about badgering the child within. It’s about resonating with all the children because once upon a time we were them.